Best description of today’s hearing’s thus far comes from our own Hugh:

This is like a CEO giving you his expansion plan and pointing to all the charts that show everything is going great, except for the one small fact that the company is going under.

Things are going so well in Iraq that we can cut our troops back to more than we had there when the surge started. That’s progress….

So a quick recap.

Although violence is up, it’s down.
Although our mission is to protect civilians, we are currently attacking them.
Although the Iraqi security forces are doing great things, we still can’t defend anything.
Although we are withdrawing troops, we are leaving more troops there then before.

Emptywheel points out that the DOJ doesn’t have time to respond to Congressional requests for information to back up their claims — so the stonewalling continues, and the accountability and oversight suffers for it.

This from Arianna made me laugh out loud:

Have you heard the news? "The Surge" is about to end. The next phase of our 100 Year War is "The Pause." Surge, Pause… Surge, Pause… We can’t pull out! It’s all starting to sound a bit sexual, isn’t it? But the American people are the ones getting screwed.

Thomas Ricks and Spencer Ackerman have more.  It’s certainly feeling like a long, long morning of spin, counter-spin and innuendo…and not much blunt truth. 

Related posts:

  1. FDL Book Salon Welcomes Thomas Ricks – The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008
  2. David Petraeus is a Secret Muslim
  3. New Docs Show Christie Living Large on Public Dime
  4. Michael Capuano & Sam Farr are Open to Triggers; I’m Open to Primaries for Capuano & Farr
  5. Odierno and Petraeus vs. Cheney on Abuse as a Terrorist Recruitment Tool